The project aims to improve the skills of pre-service and in-service teachers to practice inclusive education in the classroom. The intervention targets (i) Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) and their training of pre-service teachers and (ii) 40 primary and lower secondary schools promoting appropriate teaching methods and relevant educational tools for inclusive learning with in-service teachers.

Engagement with parents and wider communities at grassroots level is important to make sure children with disabilities enter school, with further support provided by these communities being necessary for the continuing education of the children. This project uses a strategy bringing together parents, teachers, children and health workers to make the schools and classrooms more inclusive for children with disabilities.

Highlighting Innovation:

This project promotes a new way of working in Rwanda by identifying and building partnerships across the home, school and community to make educational experiences of learners as inclusive as possible and aiming to reduce dependency on NGO involvement.

Beneficiaries

Scale

Teachers:

80

Description (teacher):

Teachers Trained

Other measures of scale:

56 TTC Tutors Developed

Expansion

Plans for future growth:

As the work with communities is seen as the strongest component, and this is resulting in higher enrolment in schools of children with disabilities as well as the continued active engagement of these communities to support the school experience of the children with disabilities, there is a need for further discussions with MINEDUC and REB on how to sustain these eld-based activities, with a key role for decentralised level GoR staff.

ADRA to share the ndings of the project with REB, College of Education (CoE) and development partners and make a case for continuing teacher training on inclusive education and making it an integral to the TTC programme in all TTCs in Rwanda

Budget is required for this, preferably from government but otherwise through external funding.

Monitoring & Evaluation

M&E strategy in place?:

Yes

M&E strategy:

The evaluation has a variety of different foci. It is built mainly on a single questionnaire administered at baseline and end-line. The respondents to the questionnaire are head teachers and teachers, with interviews of TTC tutors and SEOs, and Focus Group Discussions with parents and students. In addition data on enrolment, retention and participation of SEN children were collected but the data sources are unknown.

Reported Results

Learning Outcomes

Assessment Performance:

The multi-stakeholder, participatory approach led to a significant increase in enrollment for children with disabilities with 1,223 children enrolled across the 40 schools (473 at baseline). 68.75% of in-service teachers stated that they had used some inclusive principles in the classroom while the 16 TTC tutors stated that they had learnt inclusive methods with 90% confident to train pre-service teachers (there are no baseline data).The evaluation is weak with no clear focus, no validity, and no proven reliability of the instruments. The evaluation reporting is poor and lacking transparency. The evidence is therefore not a good basis for decision making.

Supplementary documents

Contact information

Name:

Dr. Ngaite Nkmo Mgeni

Profile creation details

Last updated:

Thursday, September 1, 2016 - 9:53pm

Key Challenges:

While national policy on inclusive education exists in Rwanda, the absence of inclusive principles in schools has an impact on the number of children who enrol, participate and complete basic education.

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